St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-06-02
DINING-HALL MENDICANCY.
James O. Ho,oard in the Forum.

The practice of tipping, or giving
gratuities to hotel pOrters, restaurant
and hotel walters, and other servants
is of comparatively recent intrOduc
ton into the United States. Some
eighteen or twenty years ago, wheI
our foppish young men about town be
gan to make trips abroad, it was OBJ
served OH their return home, that the.
had adopted foreign accents, int1ec
tons, Alterations, and especially tina
they aped everything English. Tip
ping was at that time, as now, an es
tablished custom in England, as wei
as throughout Europe and Asia, anC
acres of palms, itching for coin, were
Outstretched by mendicant host
ranging from the laced majOr-dOmOs o
gorgeous palaces and the liveried bea
dies in great cathedrals, down to the
beggars of India and Europe, and the
lazzarOni of Naples. So universal was
the custom that it went far to justify
the sarcasm of Senator Thurman, wht
when asked if he had met Prince Bis
mark, replied that he was extremely
sorry he had not, because he did want
to meet one person in Europe who was
not waiting for him to hand over &
shilling!
When tipping was first introduced al
DelmOnico's, by some of the travelled
fOps, the astOnished walters did not
know what to think of it. The more
manly attendants were inclined to re-
sent the seeming attempt to buy oil
bribe them, while others were disposed
to pocket the gratuity, with the reflec-
ton that the donor must have "takeI
little too much" But the men OF
fashion, who are usually the men Of
fortune, soon made it known that tC
tip was "gOOd FORM" The practice
rapidly spread from the fashionable
restaurants and hotels to the second
third and fOurth-rate places. While
the abuse has not yet become so uni
versal here as in other countries, it is
spreading apace. Guests are now eX-
pected to present gratuities only tC
walters and cooks, to pOrters, cham
bermaids, bell-bOys and boOtblacks, to
janitOrs, baggage checkers, trunk
handlers at railway stations, and few
other non enumerated classes. Bar
bers receive extras, varying from q
dime to a dollar, from nObs and ma
hobs; soon they will be demanding
like treatment from all. Before inquir-
ing where the evil will end, let us as
certain precisely what the evil is.
The practice of exacting tips is in
defensible from every point of view
| The bill of fare at a restaurant sets
forth Il scale of prices for the articles
of food or refreshment supplied, and,
as rule, these prices are high enough
heaven knows, and are steadily in
creased from year to year, in the face
of the fact that provisions of all kinds
have been declining for Il long time
The profit on thirty different articles
of food, chiefly vegetables, served in q
leading restaurant of New York, is
found upon investigation to range
from three hundred to nine hundred
per cent. The patron consents to pay
this profit on his lettuce, beans, OF
corn, and he finds that he is also ex-
pected to pay twenty or twenty five pei
cent more to the servant who brings
him his vegetables.
If one were expected to pay extra
only for extra civility or special intel
ligence, there might be some excuse
for the system. But this is not at all
the ground on which the practice rests.
You are expected to reward like civil
ity and incivility, to pay handsomely
for both intelligence and stupidity, and
to be equally liberal to courtesy and
insOlence. If your waiter brings you
tainted meat or stale vegetables, he
looks for the same dOuceur as if he had
brought you palatable or wholesome.
If the tip is not forthcoming, his insO-
lence is shown so long as you remain,
and if you return he will either refuse
to wait on you, or serve you worse
than before. Between cooks and wait
ers there is always a perfect under
standing as to the treatment that IA
vored or obnoxious guests shall receive,
for the reason that the tips are divided
between them. The spendthrift, how
ever worthless, who wastes the most
money on them, gets the best enter
tainment the place can afford, while
the prOvident patron, paying the same
high rates, if not lavish with his
money, must put up with the smallest
and meanest portions that can be
served. One of the most distinguished
members of the United States Senate
has frequently, it is said, been insulted
and reviled, because of this habitual
refusal to submit to this iniquitOus
tax.
At hotels on the American plan,
where the charges are four or five dol
lars a day, or fifty per cent higher than
when provisions were fifty per cent
dearer, the guest is expected to add a
dollar or so a day, in the form of gra
tuities, to the exorbitant published
rates. Now, the guests should either
pay the servants all their wages, or
pay none. Their employer, the land
lord, should properly compensate all
his employees for their services, or sad
die their entire support upon his pa
irons. There is no logic and no sense
in dividing their support between their
employer and the persons they serve.
At some hotels porters get $40 a month
from the prOprietOrs, and about "a
day, or $3.50 a month, from the guests.
In the cafe at DelmOnicO's the walters
receive a salary of S25 month, and
make as high as $5 a day, or $50 "a
seventies of the burden of the servants
compensation upon the public, and not
ven-seventhsP The step is, of
course, a short one to that European
system under which the servants pay
fixed annual premiums to nominal en-
ployers for eligible positions from
which they can prey upon the public.
From what we have said it follows
that obtaining money through an Os-
tensibly voluntary, but really compul-
sorry, process is obtaining money I'M
der false pretenses it is a species of
blackmail, where insolence and insult
follow refusal to "deliver;" it is toll
Grated swindling, because it is taking
your money without rendering an
and it is licensed robbery,
less manly than the foot pads because
you are forced to pay second time
for what you have too exorbitantly
paid for already. For it must not be